


Crossing Over

by Truth



Category: FFVII
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Spoilers, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-11-04
Updated: 2004-11-04
Packaged: 2017-10-12 21:51:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/129446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Truth/pseuds/Truth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Introduction, catastrophe and a slight lateral shift in time and space.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crossing Over

  
This story was written for the [](http://community.livejournal.com/dead_earth/profile)[**dead_earth**](http://community.livejournal.com/dead_earth/) \- The Apocalypse Fandom Project.

 ** _It was not supposed to be like this_.**

Eight of the most futile words in the history of human existence and they were the first thing to come back into his aching head.

He'd woken to absolute blackness and the stark certainty that his world had ended. Through confusion, fear and the throbbing in his head, he couldn't find a reason for this conviction, but he wasn't absolutely certain of his own name, either. He was pressed against a hard, flat surface that felt like metal, warmed enough by his own body that he must have been lying there for quite some time. He couldn't think. He couldn't _remember_ and it was with something like shock that he realized the weight pressing him down was that of another body.

The utter blackness was intimidating, especially without any sort of idea where he was or what had led him to this pass. The taste of blood in his mouth and the pain in his head made him reluctant to move, but fear eventually drove him to try to figure out where he was and what had happened.

Searching fingers found slippery skin, blood that had cooled but not yet congealed. Eventually, he found a pulse, slow and faint but steady enough to reassure him that he wasn't really alone. In the darkness, his fingers tangled in long, loose hair and it was then that he discovered a further complication. The body pinning him down, smelling of cigarettes and something like death, had both hands firmly locked onto the fabric of his own clothing.

 _The snap of electricity wasn't as strong as the shock of betrayal, pain and a sort of stunned disbelief…._ The memory was hazy, more emotion than visual. _Arms sweeping him up as if he weighed no more than a child and sudden, dizzying movement._

"No." Everything came back, slamming into him with the emotional force of a tidal wave.

 _"It wasn't supposed to be like this,"_ and the voice was hard and familiar, tinged with something that was almost, but not quite, regret.

"You bastard!" He struggled with the hands locked into his long coat, trying to free himself as his voice echoed oddly in the blackness. "Why?!"

**

Midgar might once have been a beautiful city. The ring of reactors that circled the city and the high white walls, the soaring tower of white stone and glass that rose from the center of the wheel, illuminated from within and reflecting the sun from without would have made it gleam like the city of a fairy queen, straight out of a fairy tale.

The ever-present cloud of pollution, however, had stained the walls a dirty grey. The population of the slums that grew beneath the shadow of the reactors and the huge tower had further colored them with graffiti and less… palatable stains. The poor lived beneath the huge shields mounted on the lower levels of the tower – the rich lived above. The trains that served Midgar were as broken and scarred as the people who used them. The Shinra officials flew in and out of the city, never setting foot on the ground, as if the stain on the earth would somehow transfer itself to them.

Midgar was a city of ruin and filth, of darkness and monsters that walked and talked like humans. Shinra tower rose from its center like something to aspire to, a gleaming beacon of clean water and air.

Irony isn't meant to be funny.

Over the last few weeks, things had begun to go wrong with a rapidity and viciousness that lead Rufus Shinra to believe that his father had known all along what was going to happen. Whoever murdered the old man, and he had his suspicions about that as well, had not done him, Rufus, any favors.

Tseng was dying. He'd been extracted after the disaster at the Temple of the Ancients, another of the elder Shinra's poisonous legacies to his only son, and was currently isolated in the lab as the doctors and scientists tried desperately to save his life.

And things continued to come apart.

Rufus wasn't stupid, far the reverse. He had control of the Shinra corporation, the precious reactors that supported power and light to the cities and settlements that dotted the planet. He was 'President' Shinra now. Midgar was _his_ city. In a sense, he ruled the world.

That was a load of shit and he knew it.

Rufus had inherited his father's office, a beautiful, gleaming room once the blood had been mopped up. Situated at the top of the Shinra Tower in the center of Midgar, he could see for miles in every direction. The smog that covered Midgar hid the ugliness of the shielding and the hopelessness, crime and slums; hid the circle of reactors that had brought the Shinra Corporation their money and power. That left only dark clouds beneath and the beauty of a world still mostly unspoiled.

Above, where once there had been only stars, there was something else, however, a swiftly growing orb of fire and light. Rufus had been watching it for days. Another secret of the Shinra Power Company, no doubt, and one he had never been privy to. There were still too many secrets, things that as head of the corporation he should know and yet were buried far too deep for him to uncover with the speed he was going to need if he was going to survive.

His father had preached of power being everything, of being untouchable. The previous President had believed what he'd said, believed with the fevered joy of a zealot.

They'd found him pinned to the chair behind the huge desk, the leather and rare woods of his office stained with his own blood and a long, familiar sword driven entirely through his body and the chair to pin the entire gory mess to the marble floor.

"So much for being untouchable."

The words bought him a sly, sidelong look from the young man beside him.

Rude was standing impassively to his other side, suit neatly pressed, tie knotted with a precision that was nearly inhuman. The line of rings in one ear were his only ornamentation and even his bald head looked less shaved than polished. Arms at his side, ear-piece in place, he was a tower of strength and looked far less dangerous than he actually was. Rude was lethal even on his worst days and on his best, practically unstoppable. The neat Van Dyke that he wore only seemed to intensify the effect.

That made the young man perched on the opposite end of Rufus' desk that much more surprising and it was a dichotomy that Rufus normally enjoyed.

Reno was slender, bone to Rude's muscle, and looked far younger. He could never find his tie, his suit permanently rumpled and Rufus could not remember ever having seen him with his shirt buttoned. The matching scars beneath his eyes gave him the look of an amateur street brawler. Wild red hair was gathered back in a loose tail and held away from his forehead by a pair of goggles which were in turn shoved up into his hair as a nod to respectability; although most people would discard any suggestion of the word after a good look at Reno. One leg was folded beneath him where he sat on the edge of the President's desk, a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth in blatant defiance of the 'no smoking' policy.

Most people wrote Reno off as somebody's son or brother or lover and concentrated on Rude. It was usually the last mistake they ever made. Rude had chosen to be lethal, spent a greater portion of his life working to become the best. Reno had been born to be a killer and attempting to tame the man would have destroyed him. Tseng had said that more than once in defense of the red head when Reno was caught doing something that probably would have resulted in the execution of anyone else.

Rufus knew it was a lie. Had known it when he'd sent Reno out to drop the plate on Sector Seven of the city, _his_ city. His father had always accepted the lie, looking on Reno as little more than another dangerous pet. Rufus wasn't sure what Reno was, but the Turks weren't anybody's pets.

The Turks had been part of Rufus' life since his childhood. Vincent had disappeared and Tseng was dying, or at least doing a good impersonation of it. That left Rufus with Reno and Rude.

Meeting Reno's eyes, noting the faint, disquieting glow in their depths, Rufus didn't bother to address the issue of his own speaking aloud. "Tseng?"

That wiped the half-smile from the Turk's face. "Still dying."

"Do we know what happened yet?"

"He hasn't spoken and Scarlet is stone-walling us at every turn." It was Rude who responded, deep voice almost ringing in the glass-walled office. His tone said clearly what he thought of the woman, despite her position within the company. "The investigation is 'on-going but not hopeful'."

Rufus tilted back in his chair, staring up at the sky and wondering how long it would be  
before the people in Midgar would hear about the meteor; how long it would be before the damn thing were visible in daylight.

"Elena?" The fourth member of the Turks was new, very young and unmistakably female. Rufus hadn't seen much of her as of yet but, unlike the rest of Shinra, the Turks were _his_ \- not an adjunct of his office, but one of his birth. Nominally, they reported to Heidegger. It was merely a polite and sometimes inconvenient fiction used to explain their presence and security clearances within the company.

"At Tseng's bedside." Reno looked as if he'd bitten into something sour. "She won't allow anyone to spell her or even get within about ten feet if they're wearing a surgical mask or she doesn't know them."

"Good."

Reno looked surprised. Rude merely shifted slightly, his perpetual stone-face and sunglasses hiding whatever he really thought. "Do you honestly think someone might try to do Tseng _here_?"

Rufus stood up and stepped to the side, looking down at the chair he'd allowed to have cleaned but refused to have repaired. The slash in the leather was an eloquent reminder that the President himself had died here, at the top of the most heavily guarded building in the world, and no one had seen his killer.

"Point taken."

Reaching out, pulling a report from the stack on his desk, Rufus handed it to Reno. "Tell me about this."

Reno flipped it open, shifting his cigarette to the other side of his mouth. "These're the clowns who blew Reactor One. Same ones who got underfoot when the pillar fell on Sector Seven," with no trace of irony for his own part in that episode and the deaths that followed, "and broke out of lock-up the night your old man got himself skewered."

There'd been no love lost between the previous President and his Turks, but his death was a severe blow to their professionalism. They'd taken the murder personally. However, they, like Rufus, did not believe that 'these clowns' had done the killing.

"They're the guys you tangled with on the roof." Reno finished his recitation and glanced up, raising a thin eyebrow. "Whattya wanna know about 'em?"

Rufus frowned. "Keep reading."

Pausing, Reno stubbed out his cigarette in the cut glass ashtray that was always kept at his end of the desk and moved around to perch beside Rude. Turning so that the larger man could see the file, he continued leafing through it. It was almost five minutes before he stopped his lazy perusal, but it was Rude who spoke.

"The Gainsborough girl."

Reno shot a wary look at Rufus. "You knew about her."

"Some strenuous digging bought me information that was never in _that_ file," Rufus told him grimly. "This isn't even the tip of the iceberg, just the waves that are hiding it from the on-coming ship. You knew, Reno. Tseng knew. Not about the iceberg, perhaps, but that the waves were hiding something."

"We're not encouraged to know things," Rude pointed out, but Rufus held up a hand.

"Don't try to protect him, Rude. Your loyalty to each other is commendable, but your first loyalty is supposed to be to me. Not to the Corporation, not to Scarlet or any of the others. To me." Rufus bit out the last two words, eyes flashing.

The young president of the Shinra Corporation was dressed entirely in white, a deceptively easy target amid the dark suits and the grime – not unlike the tower that he'd always called home. His Turks stood taller, had more experience… but it was Rufus Shinra who'd fought the young SOLDIER with the giant sword on the roof of that very tower, toe to toe, and lived to reclaim his father's office.

Rufus was a threat and Rude and Reno reacted to his anger by drifting slowly apart. They did not reach for their weapons, their movement more instinctual than anticipatory. Unlike his father, Rufus did not lash out at his men, but old habits die hard. Silently, they waited for him to continue.

"The reactors. The Lifestream. The dying lands. The monsters." Rufus held up a finger for each one. "Aeris Gainsborough. The illnesses. The meteor."

"Hojo. Gast." Rude shrugged broad shoulders. "They were allowed too much freedom. There've been rumors within the company for years about what was going on in the labs. Vincent…."

Rufus could feel his own expression twisting. "We never found Vincent, did we?"

"No." Reno's face was grim. "There was whatever the hell happened when Nibelheim burned to the ground. The cover-up there was heavy enough that we," meaning the Turks, "never found out more than that the place was entirely destroyed and rebuilt, all of it in secret."

"The world itself is dying." Rufus moved back to the desk and removed a black folder, placing it squarely in the center of the desk. "The Mako that powers the reactors – it's not an infinite supply. Someone in the Corporation, Hojo probably, knew it. We're killing the planet but if we stop generating power, half of the cities will die. I don't know who made the decision to keep moving forward, but…."

"Sir!" All three men turned to the intercom on Rufus' desk. "Reeve is here to see you. He says that it's urgent."

Reno glanced at Rude, mouthing the name with a skeptical expression. Rude shrugged. The Turks had little use for Reeve, despite his somewhat glorified status as the man in charge of the Mako Reactors.

Rufus ignored them, reaching out to key the intercom. "Send him in."

**

 **Almost twenty stories below, the darkness was no less complete, but four sets of eyes gleamed strangely, lit from within. Red, blue, green and brown, they shifted and blinked disconcertingly.**

The aftershocks had faded almost an hour ago, but no one had moved or made an effort to make a light. In a way, the explosion and subsequent destruction had shattered their entire world and the five people there in the darkness were not yet ready to accept it.

The darkness was strangely safe and sterile, as if by making a light and trying to move on, they would be accepting the unthinkable.

"He's dead." Red eyes disappeared as their owner closed them, although whether in resignation, indifference or grief was impossible to tell.

There was a snarl of denial from the darkness, echoed by a soft gasp and a second voice, much weaker than the first, responded. "We don't know that, although we _will_ find out."

A sudden faint glow sprang up, illuminating a small, sterile room. A hospital bed with the associated equipment, a door and a few chairs were all that it held. Surrealistically, one end of the room had a giant steel beam driven directly through it, from ceiling to floor, and the faint haze of dust in the room did not conceal how closely it had come to spearing directly through the narrow bed and its occupant.

Said occupant was propped up on one elbow, eyes narrowed and jaw set as he looked at each of the other four survivors. "Someone find me a weapon."

**

Rude was not a happy man. Solo runs weren't something that the Turks generally did – Vincent's disappearance while on assignment to Hojo and Tseng's near fatal wounding providing more than enough evidence as to why breaking apart their team was a very bad idea.

But Elena needed to keep an eye on Tseng in case he either regained consciousness or started raving. Someone had to stay with Rufus… that left only one to go out to Nibelheim and try to figure out what Hojo was up to.

'And to look, again, for Vincent.'

But that was Rude's private agenda. Vincent had been missing for years and he knew that Rufus, at least, had more or less given up on ever seeing the man again. Rufus had still been a child when Vincent disappeared. He didn't know that people like Vincent didn't simply vanish. There'd be traces of some kind, however faint. The Turks hadn't been allowed into Nibelheim to look before – Hojo held a great deal of power within the Shinra Corporation and he'd used all of it to keep them out. He'd satisfied the President and Heidegger that Vincent had simply disappeared and they'd forbidden the Turks to 'waste time' investigating.

Hojo had spent several years in Nibelheim before it had burned and, doubtlessly, most of what he'd been doing had been hidden by the destruction of the fire and the nearly instantaneous cover-up. News had come through that the place had again been burned… and Rufus wanted to know what had happened both times. Hojo, the insane scientist in charge not only of the Mako project but of genetic experimentation and a few other, less easily understood disciplines, had seemingly disappeared himself. He would not be able to keep the Turks out now.

Rude didn't bother with the town itself, passing the twice-remade buildings without glancing to the right or left. These people were all Shinra employees, they knew who he was, what he was. They'd give him aid if he asked it, but they would not interfere. No, what Rude was interested in was the mansion just outside of town – the only structure which had never burned.

'If there's anything to find, it will be here.'

**

 **He was tearing at the clutching hands now, pain and something like panic making him desperate. He wanted, _needed_ to be free of this grip, as if it was what held him here in the darkness.**

"Stop…." The voice was weak, but easily recognizable. "Stop it."

"Let go of me," he hissed, voice tight with panic.

"No." The weight against him shifted, and glowing eyes looked down at him. He fought back a renewed surge of panic at the thought that the man holding him down could actually _see_ him in the darkness. "You're injured, we both are. Lie still and calm down."

"I have a responsibility!"

His captor didn't seem to have any trouble following the non-sequitur, voice steadying and growing stronger. "Yeah, and so do I. If you'd died up there, then both of our responsibilities would have been over. So sorry to have spoiled your grand moment of martyrdom, but we need you alive. Pull yourself together."

"… where are we?"

There was a slight slackening of the grip on his coat at the question. "That's better. Unless the entire damn tower blew apart, we're somewhere in shaft two of the elevator system. That's where we were when the world ended, anyway."

"Why?" Worlds of anger and pain in that single word. He hadn't _wanted_ to die… but it would have made things so much easier.

"Because, all cracks about necrophilia aside, martyrdom would put a serious crimp in my ability to get laid."

**

Elena was finding it harder and harder to believe in anything. She'd believed in the good of the Shinra Corporation, only to have that veil ruthlessly torn from her eyes when she'd applied to join the Turks.

The Shinra elite fighting core were the men and women of SOLDIER – exposed to the Mako and made into a private army that protected the source of Mako and the energy for the cities and people of the world. The Turks were simply a small group of formal bodyguards. They appeared in public with the President of the Corporation and answered the Heidegger, the head of the SOLDIER program.

Acceptance into the Turk training program had brought a number of cold hard truths to light, the first of which being that the SOLDIER program was not where super soldiers were produced – it was merely a testing program. It was the Turks who were the culmination of that program, and it was a rare person indeed who would get close enough to see the betraying glow of their eyes – the kiss of the Mako that was proving to be the destruction of everything that she'd believed in.

Over-exposure to the Mako was producing monsters, malformed and misshapen creatures who roamed the Junon hills and the plains outside Midgard. Formerly benign creatures were turning up with fangs and claws and an insatiable hunger.

Reno had laughed at her fears, coming back from an unauthorized, solo expedition out on the plains and displaying a number of interesting objects that the scientists had extracted from the specimens he'd returned with.

'At least,' he'd mocked, 'these weren't human.'

The Turks knew that humans weren't immune to the effects of Mako poisoning, they more than anyone. That didn't keep Elena from worrying about it and Reno delighted in playing on those fears. She had the uneasy feeling that he did so because he knew she suspected that he wasn't far removed from that stage of Mako exposure himself.

Tseng and Rude were earlier models, for lack of a better term. Reno had been through an entirely different regimen and one that had not been repeated. While Tseng and Rude and even Elena had Mako tinted eyes, the faint betraying glow especially obvious in the dark, the disquieting shine in Reno's eyes could be seen even in daylight. Elena had never been comfortable around him and after the destruction of the Sector Seven slums, she was having more and more difficulty hiding it.

Not that it would matter.

The door leading from Tseng's temporary sickroom chimed and Elena rose abruptly to her feet, weapon ready. Her sidearm was swiftly lowered, however, with her recognition of the men in the doorway.

"Elena." Rufus bowed his head politely. Reno, unseen behind their employer, just smiled.

"President Shinra." Elena did not put her weapon away, but stepped away from her post by the bed, allowing Rufus and Reno access to the room while she watched the hallway behind them.

The door hissed shut behind them before Rufus spoke. "Reno?"

The redhead pulled one hand from his pocket, glancing at the small set of jewels mounted on the band that circled his wrist. "We're clear. Talk fast though. Heidegger or Scarlet will figure out where we've gone fast enough and they'll want to know why they can't hear us."

Rufus turned to the bed, looking down at the unusually pale features of the leader of the Turks. "Elena, things are moving a little faster than predicted. I want Tseng to disappear – tonight if his condition allows him to be moved." He glanced over his shoulder at her. "You too. Reeve is getting a place ready for you both."

Elena swallowed. Reeve had some kind of 'in' with the terrorists as well as being up to his neck in several other projects that she technically shouldn't even know the existence of. If he wasn't happy with the security _here_ , then things weren't just moving too fast, they were also far worse than projected.

"Two minutes," Reno warned, glancing up and shooting her a crooked smile. "Can we move him, Elena? Yes or no?"

"Yes." The response was almost involuntary and she bit her lip angrily. Taking a deep breath, she continued, "The main damage was healed relatively easily. It's the shock to his system that's keeping him under now. It's a waiting game and we can play that from anywhere that has halfway decent medical facilities."

Rufus sat on the edge of the bed, reaching out to brush his fingers against Tseng's forehead. "I never do anything by halves, Elena, especially when it comes to my Turks."

"One minute."

"Tonight, Elena. Reeve will be here to help you with the transfer." Rufus rose smoothly to his feet. "The corridors should be clear. There will be a single secure link to my office and one to your own communications system. Stay quiet and, unless Tseng comes to, stay put."

"… and we're on the air," Reno pulled his cuff back over the jeweled band and shoved the hand back in his pocket.

Automatically, Elena began, "… so it's impossible to tell if, or when, he'll wake. I'm sorry, Mr. President."

"That's quite all right. Please keep me posted." The door slid open and Rufus quit the room, leaving Reno to blow Elena a kiss before following at his heels.

Left alone in the semi-darkness with only the soft hiss of oxygen and quiet beeping of the medical monitors, Elena sank back into her seat. She wasn't surprised to feel a tremble in her hands as she re-holstered her pistol. Something bad was about to happen, bad enough that Rufus was separating himself from his bodyguards.

'Someone has to survive,' she told herself dully, looking down at the unconscious face of her commander. 'Someone who knows where the monsters come from and why the earth itself is screaming….'

She would look after Tseng till he woke. If the worst came, they would find a way to survive. She wasn't worried about Rufus, surprisingly. He'd had most of the same training that she had and, if not a Turk himself, was as close as it was possible to come without the Mako infusions that gave them their literally inhuman speed and endurance.

Rufus would survive.

Reno and Rude would make sure of it.

**

 **Midgard didn't look very different, really. The dingy grey walls and buildings with their occasional slash of unhealthy green or brown, still stood or leaned as they had before. The slums, or what was left of them after the destruction of the supporting pillar, hadn't changed. The trains still ran, or would once the last of the debris had been cleared from the tracks… if there were anyone left to run them.**

The people were gone.

Many of the citizens had fled when the giant, floating weapon had appeared in the sky – fearing that even more than the rapidly growing meteor that had become visible with the destruction of the plate over Sector Seven. Many more had died when the Shinra tower had been blown almost in half, and that had been before the secondary explosion that had destroyed reactors Two through Five.

Those people who had survived the single volley that had vaporized the top of the Shinra tower, the subsequent explosions and the rest had met a more agonizing fate as the four eastern and south-eastern reactors suffered meltdown. If Reeve's carefully redundant failsafes and Gast's shielding hadn't held, the resultant catastrophe would have left little but a molten crater where Midgard once stood.

The strangely moving creatures that walked now between Midgard's buildings, stalking the empty streets under the strange, growing glow of the meteor above were the only 'people' left in the city proper. Their presence argued that, perhaps, a steaming crater would have been the better option.

**

Reeve closed down the program which allowed him to run the remote program powering the robotic traitor within the terrorist party. It had been a revelation to find himself feeling not only sympathy for the ragtag group, but also affection. He wondered if he were a triple agent now or if he'd gone so far from charted territory that they wouldn't even have a name for what he'd become.

Once upon a time, he'd been the Shinra Corporation's fair-haired boy. Now he was just a man with pre-maturely graying temples and shoulders stooped with the burden of far too much knowledge – most of it poisonous.

Rufus was not his father. That simple fact had freed Reeve to attempt one last try at derailing the disastrous course that the Corporation had been following now for over thirty years. His appeals had not fallen on deaf ears.

Rufus had felt the earthquakes, seen the monsters in Junon's hills, watched the changes in the tides. Rufus had seen the meteor.

Rufus believed.

Unfortunately, the scant information that the young Shinra heir had managed to gather on his own indicated that things were already past the point of no return. Not only was humanity now almost totally dependant upon the Mako reactors for their 'civilization', in some places, their very lives depended on the energy provided by the Shinra Corporation.

 _"I can stop things cold," Rufus told him, clasping his arms behind his back as he stared out at the faint, approaching glow in the sky. "That will kill perhaps half our population in just a few months. I could let things go on and the planet itself will take care of it for me. That's no sort of choice, Reeve."_

"It's a decision that has to be made." Reeve had been surprised at his own determination. "And you're the only one who can make it."

"I know." Rufus turned and Reeve was struck again by how **young** he was. "But I can't make it yet. We still don't know enough about the consequences. I have a few weeks before things are taken out of my hands entirely. Start digging, Reeve. I want to know where **all** the bodies are buried."

Reeve hadn't found them all. He was sure that he'd barely scratched the surface. But they were running out of time. All of them were. The earthquakes were worsening, the monsters were growing bolder and Reeve suspected that the mad scientist Hojo was behind more of it than anyone had dreamed.

Aeris Gainesborough, that sweet-faced girl, had been more than an obsession of the scientist's – she'd been the last living person who might have been able to answer the questions that were driving Reeve. He'd been genuinely fond of her, whatever her affiliations, and her rescue from Hojo's hands by the terrorists had been one of the things which had insured his reluctant sympathy for the rag-tag little group.

She hadn't deserved to die… and Reeve frowned, rubbing his hands impatiently over his eyes. The Gainesborough girl was gone and there was little enough he could do about that now. Things were going to come to a head very soon and as the earthquakes worsened it was becoming a question of _how_ the world would end as opposed to _when_.

In the older archives, Reeve had discovered several things developed by Hojo's predecessor. Gast was gone, but his designs and some of his earlier machines remained. Among them had been a device which appeared to be some sort of shielding for Midgard, something that the notes indicated might have been planned for use against the meteor. Reeve didn't particularly want to know how the older scientist had deduced the approach of the meteor, or why he hadn't apparently felt the need to warn anyone.

Rufus had given his permission for Reeve to hook the machine up to the remaining eight reactors with instructions not to fire it up unless no alternative could be found. With each passing day, Reeve was growing more afraid that there was no other choice. Gast's machine might do almost anything, finished but apparently untested.

 _"I don't care," Rufus' eyes narrowed. "Midgard and the reactors are **my** responsibility. I'll take my chances with the shield rather than give up hope entirely."_

Reeve had given up hope weeks ago – but that didn't keep him from pressing on.

'There must be a way….'

**

 **"If this is an elevator shaft…."**

"I _think_ it's an elevator shaft." The glowing eyes blinked slowly and the grip on his clothing finally relaxed. "That's just the last thing that I remember."

He shifted, and there was a strangled noise from the man still sprawled atop him.

"Stop moving," the voice was strained.

Hands moved across shoulders, catching again in the long hair, and down one arm. Finding the thick band of metal around one wrist, he concentrated, blinking in the sudden, faint glow of light.

"It's an elevator shaft." There was a moment's pause as he took in as much of their surroundings as he could. He swallowed, hard. "I can see your hip. Most of it, anyway."

"…Fuck."

**

Rude wasn't the first visitor to the mansion, but he'd known that already. There were bodies aplenty, none of them human, littering the place. Whoever had been here last had been pretty fast on their feet and about as subtle as a brick to the face.

He didn't even have to look for Hojo's hidden lab – the place had been broken wide open and everything had been left more or less where it had fallen. The dark tunnels beneath the mansion were dark and silent, but he could _feel_ something there.

Watching.

Waiting.

The glow that lit his way was dim, but it wasn't enough to force him to remove the dark glasses that hid his eyes. Rude didn't like to advertise what he was, kept the dull green glow safely hidden. The glasses weren't any impediment to his vision after all, despite the gloom.

By the time Rude finished his own meticulous exploration of the deserted lab, a dark scowl marred his normally impassive face. Gast had been delving a little too deeply into things that Rude didn't want to put a name to, and Hojo had apparently continued this tradition.

… and the previous visitors had missed something vital.

The door, when he found it, was almost invisible. Securely locked, it wouldn't give an inch to even the considerable pressure he could bring to bear. 'There must be a key….'

A secondary search of the mansion took some time, but Rude eventually found what he wanted, a safe concealed on the top floor. The sense of watching eyes was stronger still and he wondered if this was what had happened to Vincent and Tseng. Working solo was always a bad idea.

He didn't bother with attempting to puzzle out the combination. Some of Reno's bad habits tended to wear off over time and Rude was in a hurry. One hand closed over the metal armlet that he wore against his skin, high on one forearm. Gesturing almost negligently, he watched as the lock turned first red and then a glowing blue white before coming apart with a loud 'crack'!

There wasn't enough time for the metal to begin to cool or for Rude to investigate more closely. As the noise of the small explosion echoed through the empty room, a second, splintering 'crack' sounded. Rude whirled, turning faster than could have been managed by a human being, and still was not fast enough to block the first blow or even see it coming. Something sharp dug into his side and he flew across the room to crash into the wall as pain shot through his system.

'Hojo must have left some of his pets behind,' Rude pulled himself to his feet, flexing his hands as he looked at the huge, misshapen creature that had slapped him so casually into the wall. Rude preferred to fight with his hands, able to deal damage with a blow that others would have difficulty matching even with a weapon. This particular opponent, however, was going to be difficult to take down.

Dodging a second blow, stepping inside the creature's much longer reach, he planted a solid blow to the mid-section before darting away. It wasn't phased, lashing out with a long, clawed hand. The blow would have been laughable, missing by almost a foot, but the sudden burst of flame trailing in its wake washed over the tall Turk like a wave.

The result was not at all what might have been anticipated as Rude took the blast of heat and flame head on, straightening slightly from his half-crouch. Fire was _his_ element and instead of a darkening and crisping of skin, the force and energy of the blow was absorbed. The pain in his side faded somewhat, the warm trickle of blood coming to an abrupt stop.

He smiled grimly, lips twisting. Remarkably few of the monsters the Turks had encountered could use the varied elements for attack or defense; the ones that could had almost invariably been human at some point. This one was not only tougher than average and larger in size, it had enough concentration and mind to use the power that had altered it. That was not the least of it; huge and misshapen, skin tinted and poisoned by exposure to the Mako, it loomed over Rude who tended to dwarf most normal men.

It still needed to be put down and two could play at that game.

Vincent had been deadly and if Hojo had managed to take the man down without leaving a trace, then Rude was not likely to fare any better. The large Turk had come loaded for hypothetical bear. Fingers brushed against the hidden armlet as he dodged another clawed attack, this one trailing a charge that would have lit Reno's eyes.

The sudden flash and glare of Rude's return attack proved the wisdom of the sunglasses still perched on his nose. It took several minutes for the blue afterglow to fade and when he finished blinking the room back into focus, there was nothing left of the monster – or the wall that had been behind it. Rude turned his attention to the safe.

A few minutes later, he was back in the basement, key in hand.

**

 **The constant cloud of pollution was gone. Whether it had been burned away by the incredible force of the blast that had destroyed Shinra Tower or whether the reactor meltdown had dispersed it was impossible to tell.**

The only man who would have been able to answer the question was trapped beneath the tons of rubble that marked the grave of the Shinra Corporation.

By some miracle, the fallout had been contained, the major damage being restricted to the western quadrant. That minor concession had not helped the residents of Midgard, however. Those few who had been shielded from the blast were far too busy fleeing the monsters that had once been their friends and family to notice some of the other, stranger changes in their world.

Beyond the unearthly glow of the meteor, something else was terribly amiss.

**  
"… it becomes a question of which decision will kill the fewest people." Rufus' tone was almost appallingly casual. "We're going to lose almost half the population if I shut down the reactors. There will be no heat, no electricity, no communications and, as a large proportion of the population are employed by us, massive unemployment and an economic crash to top it all off. We'll be reducing the survivors lives to a subsistence level at best."

Reeve could see the circles under Rufus' eyes and, more tellingly, the way that Reno was standing still and absolutely silent directly behind the corporation president. "Our alternative is to watch while the population succumbs to Mako poisoning – the number of cases is increasing, although it's still limited mostly to the rural populations and the animals."

"I was never meant to be a vegetarian," Reno muttered, scowling.

"The earthquakes are increasing, which is causing further problems with the rural systems." Reeve ignored the interjection, almost pleased to hear something a little like the Turk's normal attitude leaking through. "And then there's the matter of the destruction being caused by those damnable giant weapons platforms."

"We still don't know where those came from," Rufus admitted, jaw tightening. "They've been cruising the skies for a week, and the number of casualties has been minimal, despite the explosions. That's something else that isn't what it seems."

"But that's still ignoring the most unsettling factor."

"The meteor." Rufus rose slowly to his feet, turning to look out the tall windows. The sickly green glow was now clearly visible at night, like a poisonous curtain that flickered across the sky. It would not be long before the meteor itself would be visible during the day. "So it is connected…."

"Much as I hate to admit it, yes. If the Gainesborough girl were still alive, she could no doubt tell us what it all means." Reeve closed his eyes briefly, remembering the description of the young girl's murder. "I still don't know exactly what the connection is, but it isn't a random event. Something has caused the meteor to come toward us and at its current rate, the impact will cause destruction on a global scale that…."

"Save it," Reno advised him, faintly glowing eyes fixed on Rufus.

"The decision has been made," Rufus told them, jaw tightening. "The past few weeks have been spent charging the back-up generators at the remote sites. In another few days, we can shut down to half power, enough to continue to run Midgard and the Junon canon and reactor. That ought to buy us a little more time and still leave the remote areas with enough power to…."

He was interrupted by a sudden blaring klaxon. Reeve's eyes widened as Rufus whirled, white coat flaring, moving with a speed that was hard to follow. He didn't see Reno move at all, the Turk suddenly holding the long rod that served as his primary weapon and snarling into his communicator.

Reeve waited, shifting his weight uneasily and glancing out the windows as if expecting to see the meteor had suddenly increased its pace.

"Junon is under attack." Rufus' voice was flat as he glanced up from the screen on his desk. "Reeve, I think you'd better get back to your office."

Cursing, it was Reeve's turn to react. Pivoting, he raced for the elevator. Two of the terrorists were locked up in Junon, scheduled for execution, and if there was an attack, he'd be expected to be there. As Reeve left the office at high speed, Reno gave an angry hiss, one finger covering resting on the activation button of his communicator. "Scarlet is going to fuck everything up. She's moved up the executions and…."

"… we've got bigger problems." Rufus' fingers flew across the keyboard. "Thanks to the drain while we built up the reserves, the Junon energy canon isn't responding at full power."

Reno swore. "So much for shutting down the reactors."

**

 **Somewhere a long way away, aboard a heavily armored airship, two young women stared worriedly at a large, mechanical toy.**

"Cait Sith?" The younger girl bit her lip and prodded gingerly at the small, crowned cat where it lay sprawled across the head of the huge, white doll that served as its mount. It didn't move, tiny microphone dangling limply from one hand.

"What happened, Yuffie?" The other young woman tugged worriedly on the end of her long tail of hair. "I thought he was resting."

"He _was_ ," Yuffie confirmed. "But during the battle with that huge, armored airship thingummie, he started calling me…." She turned wide, haunted eyes at the other girl, "Tifa… we're in a lot of trouble."

**

Reeve was running for his life. He had no illusions about that. The Junon canon had been destroyed in the battle with the giant weapons platform and he'd remained chained to his office after that, helping the group of 'terrorists' that he'd learned to call friends.

They all wanted to save the planet, after all. It made him sick sometimes to remember that they'd never know who he really was, showering their affection and loyalty on the robot that he used to accompany them, remotely. He was fond of Cait Sith, the toy that he'd never realized might be able to help save his world.

… but there was no time left.

His friends would never know that someone inside Shinra had been helping them, and that the information he'd shared with Rufus had been leaked to the Turks. There was a reason why they tangled with the Turks more often than with SOLDIER… and a reason why they all came away from those encounters alive.

That was all at an end.

The giant machine that had destroyed Junon had engaged the terrorist group in the air and, despite their best efforts, had shrugged off their attack and was now heading directly for Midgard.

He'd stayed at his desk too long, telling Yuffie everything he knew about Shinra, about the WEAPONs that were rampaging across the planet, about the reactors, about the meteor…. They'd _needed_ that information.

After this, there'd be no one to help them, no one to protect them.

'No one to betray them.'

The corridors were deserted and, as he ran, the lights flickered and then dimmed. A subdued hum began somewhere just below audibility, humming in his bones. The Sister Ray was charging, the giant canon getting ready for a last, desperate defense of Midgard and the Shinra tower.

'Good luck, Rufus.'

Reeve managed to find an elevator, ignoring the klaxons and the calm, recorded voice telling the Shinra employees to please proceed to the nearest stairwell and evacuate the building. Technically, the elevators were locked down, but Reeve's employee card held clearances and overrides available only to the highest level of administration.

With a subdued 'beep', the car shot downward.

He prayed that it would move fast enough.

**

 **He stared at the exposed bone, stomach churning. With fingers that felt suddenly clumsy and numb, he pulled back the other man's cuff, looking down at the dull metal band and the colored stones set in it.**

"Don't bother. I'm not carrying anything that will help." The rough voice was fading again.

Cursing, he eased one arm beneath the broken body. By the time he managed to work a hand up to his own throat, his companion had lost consciousness again. Fingers traced the band hidden beneath his collar, counting the stones until he found the correct one.

A brief purple glow, a swirl of energy, and it was again dark in the shaft. Pushing the pinning body to one side, he pulled himself to his knees. His headache was gone, as was his uncertainty. In the renewed darkness, his hands traced the familiar face, sliding hesitantly to explore the hip and leg.

It was with no little relief that his fingers found blood-slick skin, but no trace of the shattered bone that he had seen before.

"Come on, wake up." The coldness in his own voice surprised him for a moment, but the memory of betrayal refused to fade. "We've got to get out of here."

**

Rude's suit was torn in three places, there was frost on his tie and jacket and his sunglasses were a melted puddle before he had a chance to explore the room that had opened with the key. The giant, two-headed creatures that had been waiting had made the creature upstairs look like a walk in the park. There'd been no fortuitous blasts of fire, and he had been lucky to come away from it alive.

Although fully healed, he was weary down to his bones and it was with something like defeat that he found himself looking down at a heavy coffin.

'Take nothing for granted….' It took no little effort, but Rude managed to lift the heavy lid, unsure of what to expect.

Vincent lay within the coffin, face a stark white against the black of his hair and the red of the tattered cape that was wrapped around him. He looked thinner than when Rude had seen him last, hair longer and now held away from his face with what looked to be a strip of the cloak.

Somehow, when red eyes opened, looking up at him with fatalistic calm, Rude wasn't at all surprised. "Have a pleasant nap?"

**

 **The corridor outside had fared no better than the small room. More girders were driven through the walls and directly through the passageway. In one or two places the ceiling had come down almost entirely.**

The five survivors had drifted apart, two moving slowly in the lead, one in the rear and the middle two supporting each other as they picked their way slowly through the subterranean maze.

"Do you think there's anything left out there?" the question was a whisper, meant only for the ears of the man he was supporting, but the answer came from behind.

"There is something," the voice was deep and slow, almost wary, "but it is not likely to be pleasant."

**

The blast hit just as the elevator doors opened, and Reeve had almost a full minute to register that his time was up before the shock wave hit. Stumbling out of the elevator, he was only a few feet from his destination when the force of the explosion above drove him to his knees and all the lights went out.

Dragging himself to his feet, he managed to limp to the door. Without power it would not open and, fear of aftershocks spurring him on, he pounded on it with all his strength. "Open the door! Hurry!"

"Don't panic."

The voice was as familiar as it was unexpected and Reeve couldn't keep himself from turning, even in the darkness, in an attempt to catch sight of the familiar face. Two sets of eyes stared at him from a very short distance indeed, glowing a dark red and a poisonous green.

"R-rude?" Reeve felt his shoulders hit the door behind him just as it opened and he lost his balance, landing hard on his back.

"Reeve?" Blue eyes, this time, and he swallowed a sigh of relief.

"Elena."

"Now that we've established who everyone is?" Rude and his companion entered the room, each taking rough hold of one of Reeve's arms and hauling him inside. He could hear the door closing behind them as they drew him across the room.

"I give it ten seconds to aftershock." Rude's voice was appallingly matter-of-fact. "How're the supports down here, Reeve?"

"They'll hold," Reeve's voice cracked on the word, but his dignity was no longer something that concerned him in the least. "Rufus asked for 'secure' and secure is what I gave him."

"Then all we have to…."

Elena's words were broken off as the aftershock hit and Shinra tower finished its spectacular collapse.

**

 **Finding the ladder that would take them out of the shaft was easy enough once the faint glow of light was restored. The climb downward, however, was far more difficult. Healing had been complete, but stress and fatigue kept both men moving slowly. With just a single, dim light source between them, the creak of settling debris and the moan of over-stressed metal added a distinctly unpleasant air of tension to their journey.**

"Stop."

He did, peering downward at the globe of dim light that surrounded his companion. "What is it?"

"We're gonna have to get one of the access doors open." Glowing eyes looked up at him. "The ladder's been sheared right off."

**

On the outside, the Turks were a group of bodyguards, nothing more and nothing less. Even inside of Shinra, they were known mostly as the President's errand boys. They held every security clearance almost to the top and, since Rufus' assuming his father's post, had been granted access to every locked file and hidden program.

…those that he knew about, anyway.

Reno was not enjoying his stint at Rufus' only bodyguard, particularly because Rufus seemed intent on making sure that his only remaining Turk was kept eyeball deep in investigating various irregularities – irregularities that were invariably to be found as far as possible from the President himself without actually involving sending Reno from the city.

While one of the responsibilities of the Turks was to act as the eyes and hands of the President, their primary goal was still the protection of said President. And that was damnably hard to do when he persisted in sending them away. Reno did his duty with a grim efficiency completely at odds with his normal demeanor.

Something was wrong, very wrong, and going downhill all the time.

He had all the warning he needed, however, when the klaxons started to go off. Instinct had him keying his communicator – only to realize the only person he could possibly reach would be Elena, and she had no outside communication of her own. Abandoning his examination of the recent installation records at Reactor 3, he made his way outside at all speed, not hesitating to ruthlessly shove panicking employees out of his way as he went – in one case directly off one of the narrow catwalks. He didn't pause to see if the man survived the fall, reaching the final stairway and vaulting over the edge himself.

There were certain advantages to being a genetic experiment. Landing in a balanced crouch, he sped out of the reactor, ignoring the reaction his dramatic leap had caused among the Shinra employees still clogging the open metal stairs.

Finally reaching what passed for daylight beneath Midgard's smog cloud, he glanced around. 'Fastest way to the Tower….'

…would be to steal a vehicle.

Two minutes later, goggles over his eyes for once, Reno was speeding across Midgard, face grim. The klaxons were still sounding, an endless scream of fear and warning that had spread around the entire perimeter. He could hear them even over the sound of the bike engine and the wind in his ears… and ahead, the heavy metal shutters were sliding across the tower windows.

'I'm running out of _time_.'

There was more than one way to skin a cat and Reno released his grip, bringing one hand to brush across the opposite wrist. A moment later, he disappeared entirely.

It took skill to handle a bike in the rubbish choked streets of the slums. You'd have to be insane to do so at speed. Reno's vicious twist of time had him moving twice as fast as the world around him, and he had no intention of wasting a single, precious second. Even here in the street, slightly to the left of actual events, he could hear the throbbing hum of the reactors as they charged the huge canon that was meant to defend Midgard and the Shinra Tower.

Rounding a corner, keeping his goal in sight, Reno took a sharp, angry breath. Looming against the horizon, dwarfing even the shining column of Shinra Tower, was a leviathan. Metal and glass, horror and destruction, all forged together into something so massive that the mind rejected the very idea that it should be moving through the _air_ instead of tied eternally to the ground by its own weight.

The gigantic weapons platform was headed straight for them.

'Rufus, you insane fuck… you _knew_ this thing was coming… you must have.'

Face set in an angry snarl, Reno sped up, weaving between the sparse traffic and slow-moving pedestrians. 'First Elena and Tseng, then Rude… you asshole. You can't protect _us_.'

'I won't let you get away with this.'

**

 **Rude stopped at the entrance of the tunnel, carefully scanning the darkened countryside before beckoning Elena to join him.**

"We made it." Elena wiped the back of her hand across her brow, leaving a black mark against sweat-soaked skin. The tunnels had become uncomfortably warm as they'd traveled, the ventilation fans shutting down when the main system cut out. "Now what?"

"Now we find out what happened to Shinra and to its president."

The answer came from behind her as Reeve and Tseng limped from the tunnel. The tall, dark-haired leader of the Turks was strangely pale, the effects of his prolonged illness obvious as he rested most of his weight on the older man.

Elena hastened to their side, slipping one arm beneath Tseng's and helping Reeve to support him. "How are you doing?"

"Well enough," Tseng told her tightly, managing a strained smile.

"We will need to find better cover." Vincent's deep voice came from the shadows of the tunnel, echoing oddly. "Also supplies. Judging by the structural damage, there will not be much left of the tower."

"Are we going back?" Reeve's voice betrayed his uncertainty. "It took us forever just to get this far."

"We can't leave without finding out what happened," Rude told him flatly, still staring out at the darkness. "The city is behind us. We will have to go back."

Vincent materialized out of the shadows beside the bald Turk, his own attention directed upward. "I am not sure that will be possible."

"What?" Reeve watched, confused, as Rude also glanced upward, staring at something that the three still in the tunnel couldn't see.

"What?" Elena echoed as several minutes passed without a response.

When Rude finally spoke, his voice was hoarse. "The stars… they're _wrong_."

**

Security was used to the Turks, to a certain extent. They came and went at odd hours, occasionally carrying the most interesting odds and ends, some of them obviously lethal – some of them alive.

Some of them dead.

Reno's entrance, however, was the sort of thing that they would normally respond to by opening fire. As the last layer of heavy metal shielding slid downward, cutting off all access to the tower, there was the sound of an engine, curiously out of sync.

In a blur of speed and a shower of sparks, a missile shot through the rapidly decreasing opening, separating into two pieces as it broke the heavy glass wall of the Shinra Tower lobby. The bike skidded across the lobby to smash into the security desk, uniformed guards and SOLDIERs scattering from the impact.

Reno, for his part, rolled to his feet, feeling a series of sharp twinges that spoke of cracked ribs and pulled muscles. Ignoring the leveled weapons, he headed directly for the elevators.

"I'm going to the top."

Taking in the rumpled suit, the distinctive hair and scarred face, weapons were lowered even as the last of the metal shields slid into place with a heavy, final 'thud'. No one was going to get between Reno and his goal.

Not after that entrance.

The elevators had been locked to the lobby level after the last load of 'non-essential' employees had been evacuated. Reno swiped the nearest one with his access card, uncaring as an entire lobby of security personnel watched him override a system that was supposed to have only one key.

He could thank Reeve for that.

Stepping inside, he swiped his card again. He needed to find the President… and he was now officially out of time.

Above, Rufus watched as the giant weapon ceased its forward movement. Scientists and technicians who had been swarming through the main control room, readying the canon to fire, slowly halted. All eyes were turned toward to the instrument of death that took up almost the entire horizon and was reflected in every monitor in the room.

Rufus himself was watching the sunset, reflected off the shining surfaces of the behemoth, face set. He could have ordered them to handle the canon without him. He could have fled – his father certainly would have.

This was _his_ city…

… and he would not leave them to die alone.

"Sir?"

Rufus closed his eyes. "Fire when ready."

As the technicians sprang back into movement, panic now lost in activity, no one heard the elevator doors open.

Reno knew his employer, had known him since they were both barely more than children. As he stepped into the room, elevator doors closing slowly behind him before the long, slow drop back to the lobby, the long rod that served as his favorite weapon was already swinging loosely from one hand. Rufus would not go without a fight, and Reno didn't have the time for that.

'No time at all.'

Rufus' hands went to his throat as an arm wrapped around it from behind. He had just enough time to registered the whispered words…

"It wasn't supposed to be like this."

… when a sharp pain registered in his side and the world went mad.

Reno held on as the electricity shot through Rufus, feeling the sudden spasm of pain in the body pressed against him. Electricity was _his_ drug, and the secondary shock caused his earlier aches and pains to fade entirely.

As the tower shook with banked power, the scientists shouting conflicting orders, Reno caught sight of Hojo in the crowd. A vicious smile spread across his face as Rufus sagged against him.

'You can die here, old man. Do us all a favor….'

Slinging the rod from his belt one-handed, he gathered Rufus into his arms.

"FIRE!"

'Shit….' He ran for the elevator, knowing that he'd have less than a minute to get the doors open again. The car itself was probably too far down for a non-fatal landing, even with his enhanced body. It didn't matter.

Rufus Shinra would survive.

That's what Reno had been made for.  



End file.
